Shiny Toy Guns are back, target Lake Tahoe

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STATELINE, Nev. - The last time they were at Lake Tahoe, the guys from Shiny Toy Guns failed to draw attention with shiny metal lures.

"Chad (Petree) and I took a small boat out to the middle of Lake Tahoe," synth and bass player Jeremy Dawson said. "We sat there for hours and there was not a sign of life anywhere in sight. We were throwing little bass lures out and completely wasting our time."

However, when Dawson, Petree, Carah Faye and Mikey Martin get on a stage, they get plenty of attention. And nobody sits around.

Shiny Toy Gun's original lineup is back after a three-year hiatus by Faye. That is one of the reasons for the title of the band's next album, "III," which will be released in October when the quartet goes on tour. In the meantime, it has been playing "one-off" shows, such as the one Tuesday with the All-American Rejects at the MontBleu Outdoor Events Center.

Dawson said the band will play five songs from "III," including one it will perform live for the first time. Shiny Toy Gun's second album, "Season of Poison," was released in 2008 and Faye was not involved.

Dawson said the split with Faye traumatized the band's bond with its fans. Dawson and Martin traveled to Sweden, where Faye was living, in an effort to bring her back.

"We just fell apart from exhaustion and lack of communication and lots of things," Dawson said. "We sat down and had coffee and talked the whole thing out. Everything was fine. We were just tired. Then we came home and made a record.

"We're not going to go down the path that we did that led to our demise. We're going to do it the correct way this time."

Shiny Toy Guns has plenty of motivation to stay together. The Los Angeles band is highly connected in the music, film, television and video game industry.

Dawson, who plays synth and bass, and singer-guitarist Petree have played in bands together since they were teenagers growing up in Oklahoma. They had psychedelic rock, punk rock and grunge bands before they entered the rave scene and played dance music.

Then DJ Jonny Sunshine took Dawson to a party in Echo Park where he heard the music of T. Rex, Fischerspooner and A.R.E. Weapons.

"The whole room was dancing, and they weren't club kids or rave kids," Dawson said. "They were rock kids with mohawks and amazing hair and chains and boots and they were dancing to this music.

"He said, 'You need to go to Brooklyn.' That's where I discovered amazing and unbelievable world of electro-clash. I came home and my head spun. I said, 'We gotta start a band and we're gonna merge rock, melodic pop and electro into one sound and were gonna have two singers and a girl and were gonna cover all bases and let's try it.' "